


Exile

by justasparkwriting



Series: folklore [2]
Category: Actor RPF, Florence Pugh - Fandom, RPF Timothee Chalamet, Timothée Chalamet - Fandom
Genre: Actors, Drunken Shenanigans, Established Relationship, F/M, Filming, Friends With Benefits, Mistakes, Open Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justasparkwriting/pseuds/justasparkwriting
Summary: Timothée crosses the one line they've sworn they never would. Consequences, heartache, and despair enfold as Timothée tries to find his way back to her.
Relationships: Florence Pugh/Zach Braff, Timothée Chalamet/Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet/Original Female Character(s), Timothée Chalamet/Reader, Timothée Chalamet/You
Series: folklore [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012737
Comments: 29
Kudos: 33





	1. Breaking Branches

**Author's Note:**

> The story is mine, but I do not own Timothée or Florence. This came to me in a dream and I woke up stuck on the idea.

She poured the last of the chardonnay into her glass, sipping slowly as she stirred the large pot of soup on the stove. The air had begun to bite, the leaves shedding their summers glow for autumnal comfort and eventual rest as winter hit. She was cozy in an old sweater she’d kept from an ex, his alma mater printed in large writing across the front. The years of wear and tear had become embedded in the print, cracking it to expose the maroon of the fabric it was pressed upon. She loved it, despite the gnarly way in which she’d come to collect it. It was her favorite garment for days like this. The cold air of fall, the emptiness of their home, and the long days where she needed complicated recipes to occupy her time… to bide her time until he called. 

She glanced at the clock, he’d be calling soon, a call when he got up, before getting ready for set, or running his lines again, a call to start his day and wind down hers. She stared at the stove clock, permanently set either two minutes fast, or an hour and two minutes depending on Daylight Savings. She hated the thing; it was his purchase, a luxurious French stove with a manual written exclusively in French. Which was fine when Timothée was home, but alone she was at a loss of what buttons to push and how to fix it. Her remedial language skills were cute when they’d met, and she’d remembered a little more French from high school than she realized, but an entire manual with no pictures or diagrams? No, this was a Timothée chore that was waiting to be fixed. It had been waiting to be fixed since the first of the month, when they’d fallen forward.

She set her silicone spoon down and admired the space in front of her. She loved their kitchen. She had insisted on spending the most money on it and their master bath. They had found the home after a few months of looking. It needed a desperate remodel, a makeover to cleanse the house of years of neglect. It was in a secluded part of LA, with large trees and few neighbors. They’d bargained down the price and tossed it into their renovation budget. Which was why she stood on their herringbone reclaimed wooden floors, staring at their gorgeous French stove top, with the intricate black tiled backsplash that stretched the length of the wall. The gold hardware popped against the forest green cabinetry and accented the large marble island. 

She sighed, resigned to the fact that he wasn’t calling today. She turned to set her wine down and glanced out the glass wall at their side garden. Tomorrow she would collect her harvest and add it to her soup, perhaps make a vegetable broth to be saved for another day in her empty home. 

Across the world, Timothée was waking up, a hangover shredding through his body. He turned and looked at the person lying next to him, before getting up and searching for his boxers. She stood too and scrambled to find her own clothing before staring at him. Their eyes met, the haze of the alcohol and the realization of what had transpired crossed their faces at the same moment. She waved awkwardly, saying she’d see him on set, before darting out of his hotel room. 

Timothée sat on the bed, head in hands. The grogginess of just waking up after a night of drinking was apparent as he tried to decide what to do. Would it be worse if he thought about it, or just called her? 

She picked up on the first ring, excitement in her voice. 

“Hi honey, I wondered if you were going to call,” She said, sighing. 

She waited for him to say something, to greet her, call her a pet name, anything. 

“I slept with her, I, I can’t believe, we slept together,” He exhaled it out through his lips, wishing desperately that the release of the statement would take the guilt and weight off of his body. He sat quietly, wondering what her response would be, hoping she could give him some sort of solace. 

“Okay,” She said. She moved around the island to sit on their stools and took a gulp of wine. She began to bite her bottom lip as she set her phone on the counter, placing it on speaker. 

“I’m so sorry,” Timothée said, his voice cracking. 

“Tim, we have an open relationship,” She reminded him. He sensed the calm in her voice, the indifference to him relinquishing a regret she never wanted to hear in the first place.

“I know but, this, this is a line I didn’t want to cross,” He pleads. Why doesn’t she care more? 

“It seems like you’re trying to make sense of this more than I am,” She said. 

“I just, there was a line I didn’t want to cross and,” The tears are forming, the bile rising in his throat, he tries to inhale slowly, calm himself. If she’s okay with this, why isn’t he? 

“And what? You did? Timothée, you have to live with yourself and the decision you made,” The words cut through him. They say the opposite of hate isn’t love, it’s indifference. He feels the air in their relationship starting to turn. She takes another sip of her wine and wipes the tears that have slid down her cheeks. 

Their open relationship had been a mutual decision which they’d come to after his first film away. The desire for companionship, for intimacy on both their ends was palpable. Conversations became less about how they were doing and more about what they could do to get each other off. Their relationship became twisted, and once he’d come home, they’d forgotten how to be together. They had sat across from one another in her old one-bedroom apartment, sweltering in the summer heat. Did they break up, or did they find a way to work through it? 

At first, they balked at the idea, an open relationship. Wasn’t that a phrase tossed about so people felt okay stepping out on their partners? Or was that the heteronormative notion they’d become invested in? What if, they supposed, when Timothée was gone for filming, they had an open relationship. They could sleep with or hook up with whomever they wanted? There would be no strings, no emotions. The utmost protection used, and most importantly to both of them, whomever she slept with while he was away was not to step foot in their home or her apartment. That bed was reserved for their love, and their love only. 

Did they want details about who the other was fucking? What could be shared? They started by telling each other nothing. Which became complicated when they would come together in their bed with new tricks or skills. “Who taught you that?” was a question that became common in their first year as a selectively open relationship. So much so that they decided they would share who they were fucking, but no pictures, no googling, no details on what transpired. When they shared a new trick, it was “from a buddy”, and that was it. 

They didn’t keep score, or a running tally to compare. They didn’t share details of how hard they came or what positions they used. They became so good at it that by year five, “I saw a buddy last night,” was all they ever needed to tell each other. Which was why, in Timothée’s mind, this felt like a betrayal to both of them. 

“I didn’t want this, I didn’t… Fuck, I’ve just been so lonely, and I’ve missed you so much,” 

“Timothée this is what we agreed to.” 

“I know I just, I can’t believe I slept with her,” He emphasized the pronoun, both in a show of his disgust with himself, and his deep guilt that it had been his costar. He knew how she felt about him sleeping with costars, how uncomfortable it made her when they’d walk red carpets or be at premiers. It became personal, intimate, addicting, when it was meant to just be a hit. 

“How does she feel?” She asked. 

“Well she left really awkwardly, and I don’t know if we’re ever going to talk about it.” 

“Well it seems like maybe you need to do some soul searching,” The ice in her voice gave him goosebumps. 

“Babe, I’m sorry,” He said, letting the crack in his voice radiate into the receiver. 

“For what?” 

“For talking about it with you, I know that our rule is that we don’t talk about who, but I just, I felt like I needed to tell you about it.” 

“Tim, thank you for apologizing. Maybe you think it’s a big deal because you know how I feel about you sleeping with coworkers, or maybe it’s because you two are good friends and have been for years. You followed through on why we have an open relationship, but maybe you both took advantage of each other. She’s been broken up from Zach for what, a month? Maybe you feel guilty?” 

“I feel so fucking guilty. So. Guilty.” 

“Maybe you and Florence need to sit down and talk about it,” 

“Ugh, yeah, you’re right,” 

“Maybe that’ll make you feel better. Go get breakfast and lots of coffee.” 

“We aren’t called until tonight,” He muttered. 

“Maybe go back to sleep first,” She paused, the snap in voice striking her throat. 

“I love you,” He said, his voice above a whisper, wanting to ensure her his heart belonged to her. 

“I know you do.”

It wasn’t that in this moment, when he desperately needed it, that she didn’t return the sentiment. Was her love waning? 

“When I come home, can we discuss this open relationship thing?” He asked, shoulders reaching his ears. 

“Why?” She asked. 

“I’m not happy with it,” He said. 

“Because you slept with your friend and are trying to rectify it in your mind, or because you’re unhappy with it?” 

In the best of times, he loved this about her. Her unflinching matter of fact statements, her ability to say what she thought, to ask the question that cut to the core of the other. But when he was hurting, all he wanted was for her to stop playing devils advocate, and just be there for him. 

“I just want you,” He whispered. 

“Okay, we can talk about it.” She said. 

“I love you,” He said, punctuating the love. 

“Love you,” She said swiftly before hanging up. 

She sat back and tried to make sense of what had transpired. Because Timothée had fucked up, would she now have to rid herself of the occasional relief she sought from others? Because Timothée fucked up, would their relationship become toxic and unsustainable? Was she really worried that their relationship was doomed, or was she worried that she liked her rotation of strange men? 

She didn’t know. And neither did Timothée.


	2. Five Whole Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timothee's crossed the line... now what?

She left a kiss on his cheek as she ran down the stairs and out to the garage. She knew he’d remember her 10:30 workout, a Saturday staple, but she texted to remind him that today she had brunch with a few friends. She delicately wrote a note, which she set next to a freshly filled glass with water before setting it on the bathroom counter, ibuprofen next to it. She knew he would be dehydrated when he awoke, not only from their intimacy the previous night, but from the copious amounts of alcohol they drank.  
Timothée had begun shipping a few boxes home from vineyards and distilleries that he’d enjoyed while filming, often holes in the wall that had no Yelp review, often small family owned places. He’d send a case to his parents, one to his agent and manager, and one home. She loved that he brought home specialty liquor, particularly because it made their bar a little gauche and allowed her to feign any understanding of the complexities of alcohol. She preferred prosecco, preferably under $15 and easily accessible in her local grocery stores liquor aisle. 

Timothée was a connoisseur, a wannabe sommelier. He had an impeccable palate, which always terrified her when out at restaurants or catching a drink on a Thursday, unsure what to order. She often deferred to him, leaning on his expertise. At first, he thought it was charming, he liked that she wanted him to pick it out. In reality, she was avoiding looking like an idiot in front of a man she liked so much so quickly. Eventually she shared her insecurity, and the next time they were out, he asked if she wanted him to order for her, and since then, he had taught her a lot about alcohol, about making drinks, about which wines paired with what. In her heart, she didn’t care, but she felt more confident every time they went out. 

They loved sharing nights over a new acquisition. But it could also be their downfall. Last night they had tasted three different bottles of vodka, sipping slowly on their drinks while they caught up and made out. 

Timothée had returned on Tuesday from filming. Much like his other projects, he was completely burned out. Yes, set tended to have a lot of downtime, but Timothée was a pro, and he knew that the last two weeks were often the most grueling. Filming all hours, getting shots and different takes and angles on every scene. His body was physically worn down, and his mind had tried to separate himself from the incident two months prior. The minute he got to their house, she was waiting with a scalding bath, the perfect balance of Epsom salts and lavender. She knew him so well and slowly undressed him and herself, languidly moving into their tub. The music was low, the lights were dimmed, and they sat together, skin pruning, reacquainting themselves with the intimacy they had missed. 

She’d made dinner and they ate in comfortable silence. Then, she gave him a melatonin gummy and he passed out at 8PM. 

There was nothing like falling asleep in your own bed, in your own house, with the person you love, after being away for three months. His accommodations abroad were always nice, often over the top for him. He took it upon himself to become friends with the staff, to say hello to every member he saw, and he took his politeness very seriously, particularly in a country where he didn’t speak the language. But his own sheets… waking up to her … his own bathroom with the perfect water pressure … and a closet where his clothes were put away correctly, where laundry was done when he wanted it to be when, where he could cook any time of day. Their house was home, whether it was this estate or the flat in New York.

He fell asleep quickly and awoke early afternoon to find her gone to work, but his favorite pastries from their local bakery waiting for him. Upon her return she found him doing laundry and making space for his new purchases. He left a surprise for her on the top of the counter in their closet, knowing she’d find it when she came up to change. 

“Babe, what’s this?” She asked, carrying the bag into the laundry room. 

“It’s a gift,” He said, folding the stack of t-shirts. 

“You didn’t have to,” 

“I wanted to,” 

“Tim, this isn’t because you feel-

“No, it’s because I saw it and I thought you would like it. I like to buy you things while I’m gone,” He said shrugging. 

“I really like it,” She said, holding the bag tight to her chest. 

“I’m glad,” He stopped folding to take her in. She was still in her professional attire, hair pulled back and dangling earrings still in. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you, I had an important meeting this afternoon,” She looked up from the bag and caught him staring. 

“That’s a good color on you,” He said, moving towards her to rest his hands on her hips. She’d missed his touch and shivered at the contact. 

“Thank you,” She whispered, eyes darting from his lips to his eyes. He mimicked the movement and leaned in to kiss her. She turned her head. “I need to change.” 

She turned on her heels and walked back to their closet, silently screaming. 

Timothée didn’t protest or pry, he knew why she’d pulled away. Perhaps after dinner they would talk, air things out. She was often hesitant to be intimate when he returned, unsure who he’d been with… the fact that she knew, the fact that she’d spent Friendsgiving at her house and had invited her to movie nights made it worse. Maybe she needed more time. 

Which is how they ended up drunk and having sex in various places in their home all Friday afternoon, evening and night. There was something in the liquor that loosened her up, and something in how he looked and spoke to her that reminded her how much he loves her. It was also because of the alcohol that they had officially ended their open relationship, deciding monogamy was what they both wanted. The incident with Florence had caused them to reevaluate their relationship. Wasn’t that the point of a relationship? To grow and challenge one another, and at the end of the day, make decisions together? It was on that note that they had made love most of Friday, and why he was sleeping until eleven on Saturday. 

Timothée was awoken by his phone ringing and loudly vibrating off the nightstand. Jolted from his dreamless slumber, he quickly reached for it and furrowed his eyebrows at the caller ID. 

“Hello?” He growled softly as he cleared his throat. 

“Hey Timmy, can we meet for coffee? I have something I need to talk to you about,” Florence said. 

“Oh, yeah. Sure. When?” 

“Can you do 30 minutes?” 

“Uh, yeah, yeah, where?” 

“Do you want to just come here?” She asked. 

“Sure, see you in 30 minutes,” He hung up the phone before jumping out of bed. He made the bed quickly, and thankfully tossed back the water and ibuprofen left for him. He scanned the note while he brushed his teeth. He slipped a baseball cap over his curls and slid into his favorite trainers. He hopped into his car, grateful that she was kind enough to put gas in it and drove off. 

It was three hours later when he heard the garage door open. He tried to wipe the snot from his face. He wondered if he washed his face quickly, would it make a difference?

She came in through the garage, singing. As the door shut behind her, she was stopped by how quiet it was. Their home was never quiet, particularly in LA, where they often played music or podcasts throughout the house. As she paused, she listened, where was he? 

“Tim? Timothée?” She called moving through the kitchen. “Babe, where are you?” It was then that she heard a sniffle from the living room. She turned down the hallway and beelined for the space. 

She stopped dead in her tracks as she took in the sight in front of her. His eyes were swollen and puffed. A pile of tissues sat on the coffee table, the box flipped on its side, no tissues left. His hat was long forgotten, the pile of tissues starting to form a dome on top of it. His curls were blown from his hands running through and tugging them. He glances at her through swollen eye lids. 

“Babe what’s wrong?” She asked, rushing to his side. He engulfed her into his arms, tears falling onto the exposed skin of her neck and shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” He sobbed. 

“Tim, what’s going on?” She questioned, still holding him. 

“I’m so sorry,” He cried. 

“Tim, you’re starting to scare me. What’s wrong?” 

“Florence called, she wanted to have coffee,” 

Her mind began racing. She called today, she knew of their arrangement, had she decided she wanted more from Timothée? Had he slept with her, a day after they had decided to be monogamous? Had she called to say she gave him HIV or Chlamydia? Was she dying? 

“Okay, and?” She whispered, bracing for the hit. 

“She’s, she’s pregnant, and it’s mine, and she’s keeping it,” He tried to breathe, to inhale the air she’s exhaling, but she was rigid. 

“What?” She asked. She could feel her entire body going cold, her eyes filling with tears. 

“Florence… She wanted to get coffee and she told me,” He said. He sounded like a teenager who had had sex for the first time and gotten his girlfriend pregnant at Christian Summer Camp. Like his entire life was over, like his future was ruined. His voice was already pleading, though he didn’t know for what. 

“She’s pregnant?” She whispered. 

“Yes,” He said. 

“And it’s?” She asked. 

“Mine.” His voice cracked. “She wanted me to know and said we could talk about how involved I wanted to be. I have to think about it! I, I’m going to be a -

“Okay,” She said, arms dropping to her sides. Her tone was hollow. “I’m um, congrats. I’m going to ...”

She stalled, brain trying to work in overdrive to compensate for the sludge it was peddling through. She decided on her next action before running up the stairs. At first, he thought she was slamming the door to tell him to stay away. But then she came down the stairs, large suitcase packed. She didn’t stop to talk. She didn’t stop to listen to him. She didn’t stop to console him or offer him support. She didn’t stop as he called her name, as he followed her to the garage. She didn’t stop as she watched him fall to the floor in the space her car once was. She didn’t stop as she drove away from the house and the life they shared. He didn’t stop calling after her, even after his knees hit the concrete, the snot and tears mixing on his tongue as he tried to will her back.


	3. My Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he was honest with himself, Timothée expected her to cancel. But there she is, on his doorstep.

The phone had rung hundreds of times over the last six months. The first month, Timothée called her twice a day, every morning and every night. On weekends he called more frequently, drinking his days away, leaving embarrassingly long messages. He declared his love, shared his vision for their future, talked about what he wanted to name their kids and when he thought they’d get married. He described the property in France that he wanted to buy, did she know he had been looking? He detailed how he wanted to continue to go back to Crema for the summer, maybe buy a villa there too, and split summers between the two locations. He wanted their kids to learn French and Italian, he wanted her to learn too. He wanted to wear a paisley suit, or maybe velvet, for their wedding. Their wedding, he had already planned, and wouldn’t it be romantic if it was over three days in their new château? 

He became more desperate as the days turned into weeks, which turned into months. On one particular evening, his anger overcame him as he yelled into the receiver about her belongings and their house. What the fuck did she want to do? Did she fucking plan on ever coming back for her clothes? Did she expect him to fucking ship them from their house to wherever the hell she was? And, where was she? Where the fuck was she? Why was she doing this to him? To their life? Why the fuck couldn’t she get over it and come home? Didn’t she realize how much he needed her? Why wouldn’t she just talk to him? 

This had been the final straw. He had awoken to find a new folder had been shared with him. He opened it and was confronted with what he had become. She had saved his voicemails, his drunken assaults and languid descriptions of their life. She had kept his sobs, his deepest secrets, his desires. Here they were for him to relive. At the end was a memo he hadn’t recorded, a message from her, telling him the days she would be coming over to pack her belongings and detailing the furniture in the house that she wanted. She didn’t care where he went, but for those three days, he couldn’t be there. She told him to sell the house, she’d take her share of the profits, and if he decided he didn’t want to move, he needed to buy her out. 

The cracks deepened. The sorrow became overwhelming. The darkness was everywhere. Despite her best attempts, her jovial personality and excitement at preparing for the baby, Florence was at a loss. She didn’t know how to make him feel better. She didn’t know how to dissuade the guilt she felt at playing a part in their demise. 

After six months and one week, Florence had gone into labor. They decided to keep it low key, which is why on a Saturday a month after his daughter’s arrival, he had called her to ask if she would come by and meet his new daughter. He had left it open ended, a few friends stopping by to meet her, no big deal, and maybe could they talk?   
She had said she would stop by. After seven months, she still hadn’t spoken to him about why she left. 

Florence had brought the baby over to get acquainted with Timothée’s home, since she would be spending half her time with him. Tim was excited to have his daughter in his house, instead of staying at Florence’s a few nights a week to take care of her. He recognized that they would need to find a solution until she stopped nursing, and he was more than happy to spend the night, often taking all the night shifts so Florence could sleep. But he wanted his daughter in his house, and he wanted to share his daughter with his love, even if they hadn’t spoken in seven months. She was still his love, his future, wasn’t she? 

If he was honest with himself, Timothée expected her to cancel. But there she is, on his doorstep. 

“Hi,” She says, holding the gift box tightly in her hands. 

“Hi love,” He says, smiling at her. “You look, gorgeous.” 

“Don’t,” She says. 

She had tried to prepare for this, for being in her house when it was no longer hers. Timothée wasn’t making a move until they had spoken. Why would he sell their house, the house that they had built and let their love blossom in? She couldn’t tell if he loved it because it was theirs, and in his mind, he still thought there was a chance they would get back together, or because he really liked the modern home. The fact that he hadn’t bought her out or moved to sell it both infuriated her and reminded her why she would always love him: sentimentality. 

She stands at the threshold, peering in. The memory of picking out the tiles in the entry way and the stain of the hardwood floors cascaded over her. She had insisted on the herringbone pattern, which made the stairs look like a maze of wood grains. Timothée had just looked at her, smiling and saying, “as you wish”. She hadn’t imagined when they’d hung their Christmas photos leading towards the living room, that she’d been on the outside, wondering how long he’d keep them up and when he took them down, would he tell her? What would he do with the framed images when he realized they no longer had a future? Would he keep them up, despite it no longer being a home, but to show his daughter what once lived in this place? Or would he discard it to create something new for his life with his child? 

“We’re in the living room,” Timothée steps aside and lets her walk in. She kicks her shoes off and pads softly towards the voices and baby coos. 

“You came!” Florence calls, standing up to meet her. “I’m so happy to see you.” 

She meets Florence’ enthusiasm and hugs her. Florence had wanted to meet with her at various points in the pregnancy. She wanted to talk with her, try to get her to understand what her having Timothée’s baby meant, but she didn’t budge. She would only see Florence in group settings, and even then, she stayed away. Which is why Florence is so thrilled when she walks into the living room. 

“You look amazing! How are you feeling?” She sits on her couch, the one she spent weeks researching, picking patterns, comparing quality of fabrics, before insisting on this one. She hadn’t expected Timothée to change their home, but it was almost worse sitting in it, everything where she left it. He had bought similar items as placeholders for the ones she had taken, his unwillingness to admit that the items weren’t coming back evident in their lesser replacements. 

“I’m doing well, really well. Did you bring a gift? You didn’t have to!” Florence says, reaching for the present.

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” She hands the box to Florence, who proceeds to open it quickly. 

“Oh my god, this is so cute!” Florence calls, taking in the puzzle she’d picked out. 

“You know, for when she’s a little older and is playing. I remember my name puzzle from childhood, I always loved it,” She says smiling. 

Timothée can feel his heart aching. Of course, she picked a thoughtful, caring gift for his daughter. Of course, even in this challenging situation, she chose to take the high road.

“Well, speaking of, this is Margot,” Florence says, picking up her daughter from the bassinet to the right of the couch. Placing her delicately in her friends’ arms, Florence sits. 

She smiles and cradles Margot in her arms. She can feel the tears as they begin to form and wills herself to not let them fall. She has Timothée’s eyes, and enough curly hair to match her father. Her olive skin and delicate features resemble her mother. She’s beautiful. 

Moments pass before she realizes she’s staring, unmoving, unspeaking. 

“She already loves you,” Timothée says, coming over and sitting next to her on the couch. 

“She’s really beautiful,” She says, handing her back to Florence. Silence falls as Margot coos. “Um, I can’t stay long, just wanted to stop by,” she says standing. 

“Nonsense, stay for a drink!” Florence says, positioning herself to nurse baby Margot.

“No, I can’t, thank you though, for inviting me,” she quickly hugs Florence and says bye to Margot. She walks swiftly to the foyer and slips her shoes on before he’s grabbing her wrist. 

“Don’t go,” Timothée says, grip tightening on her skin. 

“I have other plans, can’t cancel,” She says, free hand moving to wipe a stray tear. 

“Talk to me, you haven’t spoken to me in seven months, please,” He says. 

“Well you’ve done enough for the both of us,” She opens the front door and starts walking down the driveway. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to say it, I’m sorry,” He grabs her wrist again in an attempt to turn her around. 

“Stop apologizing.” She says, tugging her arm out of his grasp. “Just, stop.” 

“Why can’t we talk about this? Why can’t we share in this? I need you; I love you. I know you’re mad at me, I know you’re upset but I’ve been racking my brain for seven months trying to figure out why you can’t handle this. You are my rock; you are my fucking harbor. We have a life together! I need you; I need you,” He says, the crack in his voice giving way to the tears spilling down his cheeks. 

“I can’t do this,” She says, voice wavering

“Why the fuck not?” He calls. 

“Because! Because Timothée,” She yells, venom in her throat. “This is supposed to be me. This is supposed to be my life. This is the life you promised me.” She tries to inhale through her sob. “I know you need me. I know it’s been a difficult seven months. But this was supposed to be us, it was supposed to be our baby in our house. You and me.”   
“I’m sorry, I know, I know we had plans I know, but, she’s my daughter and I can’t change what’s happened with -” 

“You don’t fucking get it, Timothée,” She cuts him off. 

“What don’t I get? What don’t I understand? I have been trying to understand why you left for months! I keep coming up short. Why would you walk out on us? Why would you abandon me and our dreams? What possib-

“She made you a father,” She gasps as the words tumble out. She pauses, trying to inhale and regain any sense of composure. “Florence gave you a child. She did! No matter what I do, I will always…”

“I-I,” He stumbles, realization washing over him as his body gives way to another round of sobs. 

“I will never be able to… my entire life, my life with you … our life … is gone, Timothée. Sell the house, buy the villa in Crema, raise your daughter…” She throws her hands up and inhales abruptly, “This was supposed to be ours.” 

She darts into her car and quickly pulls out of the driveway. She doesn’t stop as he falls to his knees. She doesn’t stop as she drives away from the house and the life they shared. He doesn’t stop calling after her, even after his knees hit the concrete, the snot and tears mixing on his tongue as he tries to will her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of Exile! Thank you for reading.


	4. Coming Soon - January 2021

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bookmark or save to get the notification when Part 2 starts dropping.

Breaking Branches

Five Whole Minutes

My Town

_Insult to Injury_

_The Side Door_

_Knuckles Bloody_


	5. Insult to Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timothée sits in the doctor’s office, waiting patiently for her to utter a word. The longer he sits, the more agitated he was becoming. His outgoing personality wasn’t going to last long in this silence, no, this purgatory, where he waited patiently for some sort of relief, the person across from him unwilling to give it.

Timothée sits in the doctor’s office, waiting patiently for her to utter a word. The longer he sits, the more agitated he was becoming. His outgoing personality wasn’t going to last long in this silence, no, this purgatory, where he waited patiently for some sort of relief, the person across from him unwilling to give it. It had been his mother’s idea, embarking on this journey. She was absolutely thrilled to become a grandmother, but after viewing the disarray Timothée’s life seemed to be in, had vehemently encouraged him to seek help. Pauline had agreed, talking Timothée through the process of finding the right doctor. The first attempt was a flop, some middle-aged man who looked down his nose at Timothée’s predicament. Something that he tried to describe as “good problems”. The second, a darling woman no older than 35, had understood, but didn’t feel like she had the experience to guide Timothée through this crisis. Which is how he found himself sitting in the cream-colored chair, eyes trained on the woman in front of him.

“Timothée, why don’t you start by telling me why you’ve decided to seek counseling,” Dr. Vernon said, pen resting in her hand, poised to write every last drop of the plight that is Timothée.

“I’ve been going through a lot of, uh, life changes, and I’m starting to feel a little out of control,” Timothée leaned back against the couch, grateful for a respite.

“Out of control how? Emotionally? Physically? Do you have a history of drug or alcohol abuse?” Dr. Vernon asked, running down the list of mandatory questions. Timothée didn’t mind answering, the previous doctors he’s met with have asked similar questions. Its perfunctory at this point, and he knows it. He has to answer, its tantamount to creating an accurate picture of himself.

“No drugs or alcohol abuse,” Timothée told her, the truth easily slipping from his lips. “I just became um, a father and my partner of the last, five would be six years just um, left me.”

“Is your partner the baby’s mother?” Dr. Vernon asks, pen scraping the page.

“No, no, that’s part of the issue,” Timothée could feel the early signs of tears forming, which caught him off guard. He hadn’t cried in weeks. 

“Hmm, do you want to tell me what happened?” Dr. Vernon has kind eyes, gentle, inviting eyes that Timothée can tell will cause him to relinquish every detail about himself.

“Where should I start?” He scratched the back of his neck, unsure if the beginning of his crumbled relationship is the correct place to detail how far he’d fallen.

“Wherever you think is best, but I might ask for more information throughout, okay?” Dr. Vernon sipped her water out of one of those giant gallon water bottles with phrases encouraging you to drink, and time stamps to keep you on track. She would’ve made fun of it, and in this square room, the traffic of LA idling in the distance which Timothée finds all the more endearing.

“We met at a party. She was a friend of a friend. She had on this black lace halter top, with a high neck that exposed her shoulders and part of her back. She tucked it into these crisp white shorts, and had some gold sandals on, with these hexagon earrings, I love those earrings… The way the sun reflected against her skin, against her smile…” Timothée sighs, “I was just, smitten already. She was funny, so funny, and she knew this weird back catalogue of TV history that had my mind racing. I don’t believe in love at first sight, at all, but she had me that day.”

Timothée can tell this is going to take more than one session, fuck, it might take years for him to unpack the layers of their relationship. It wasn’t something he could condense into one hour, not even if he cut out all the good parts and just focused on the bad. Honestly, focusing on the bad wouldn’t take that long. The longest relationship he’d had, gone in minutes, still lingering in his mind every day.

“It started to go south when I started taking projects again,” Timothée continued.

“Things were fine until you were leaving?” Dr. Vernon asked, her first interjection.

“Yeah, yeah, when we first started out, I would be gone here and there, but nothing too long. I was on Broadway, and we were both in New York, so it was all so, _easy_. I took a job that took me to Australia for four months, and that’s when we decided to have an open relationship,” Timmy nodded, his recollection of that first departure murky.

“While you were in Australia?” Dr. Vernon clarified.

“When I came home, no, it was after Australia, I guess. I had another job maybe a month later in South Africa, and after that I was in Thailand for a minute,” Timothée scratches his head, unsure if he imagined the conversation earlier than it had happened, his brain confused in the haze of new parenthood.

“Whose idea was it?” Dr. Vernon wanted to know.

“Hers, well,” He took a deep breath, sorting through the rubble, “Hers. We sat down to talk about our relationship and she just, word vomited on me. She was so lonely, and upset that whenever I was home all we did was have sex,”

“Was that true?”

“Yeah, we were sort of making up for lost time,” Timothée explained, though the explanation felt flimsy in his lips.

“How did you feel?”

“I wasn’t surprised, I’d been feeling it too… Our conversations became shorter, our tempers were flaring more than they had before. We’d been together over, two years at that point and we hadn’t experienced any of the tension, the lingering resentment, the frustration at all.”

“She was resentful, or you were?” Dr. Vernon inquired, pen still poised on the page, eyes staring into his.

“Both, she was mad I was always gone, I was upset she was living her life like I wasn’t there,” Timothée expounded.

“Was she replacing you?”

“No, she was lonely,” Timothée said.

“Were you?” Dr. Vernon pushed.

“Yeah, yeah, I was,” Timothée told her.

“You decided to open your relationship? Were there rules?” Dr. Vernon’s eyes are back to the yellow legal pad where she’s been keeping track of everything Timothée says. He doesn’t know, throughout his sessions with her, if she keeps a legal pad for every one of her high paying clients or if the secrets she must have accumulated are easily accessible.

“At first, no, but then it became really fucking clear we needed them,” Timothée sipped his own water, in his own bottle which did not have any positive words or time stamps.

“Were they strict rules?” Dr. Vernon’s still writing

“She had one golden rule, and I broke it.”

Dr. Vernon tried not to think about her patients outside of her office. Her life was hers, and the time she spent outside of those four walls belonged to whomever she chose. Every so often, there is a client who no matter how diligently she tries, worms their way into her life outside of work. They worm their way into the hours when she’s not Dr. Vernon, to perch in the periphery of her mind, pulling her back to them. Throughout the months she’d been working with Timothée, her mind couldn’t help but double back on his predicament. She had her theories on why his partner had left, but until Timothée told her, they remained so. Her theories, lodged somewhere between truth and fiction, was where her concern stemmed from.

Though she thought of him often, she didn’t think of him fondly. She was filled to the brim with concern, a lingering uneasiness of what was going through his mind, of the melding of grief and joy and exhaustion that in a particular combination, could result in mania. She was concerned that every step he took outside his house would result in the meeting of his ex at a wine bar or coffee shop, that they’d cross paths at Target, baby in toe. Dr. Vernon checked for Timothée wherever she went, hoping to never run into him.

“Would you like to tell me what that rule was?” Dr. Vernon asked, pulling her back to the conversation.

“No sleeping with co-stars. It went both ways, no sleeping with coworkers of any sort,” It rolled so easily off his tongue, the rule that broke them.

“Why did you break it?”

“I was drunk, or high, I think I was both actually,” Timothée hadn’t been this embarrassed since his parents watched _Call Me By Your Name_.

“Was it your first slip up?” Dr. Vernon pushed.

“Yes,”

“She became pregnant?”

Timothée nods, acknowledging that the story itself is a little too predictable. It sounds made up, unreal, something that doesn’t happen out in the wild, but straight out of Hollywood. Which, in his cynical mind, it was. Two actors, fucking, girl gets pregnant, boy loses everything.

“Did you ever discuss the probability that at some point in your other forays that you might impregnate another woman, or that she might end up pregnant?” Dr. Vernon doesn’t pussyfoot around her questions, she packs a bunch and Timothée is barely able to fight back. Regardless of the prep he does the night before, the week before he finds himself in this space again, she always goes for blood.

“She had an IUD, and I always used condoms and made sure the women were on birth control… But it wasn’t, it wasn’t a major thought or part of the conversation?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think we ever thought it would happen,” Timothée hates himself for being so basic, of course it wouldn’t happen to him, he’s Timothée Chalamet! He’s Oscar nominated; girls literally cry over him. How could he be so reckless?

“Did you exercise this privilege often?” Dr. Vernon is curious now, Timothée can see it in her hazel eyes. She’s done pressing the matter of him realizing his fallibility, more curious about the aftermath.

“Rarely, not that I didn’t have, desires, I just was never truly comfortable with it.”

“But you let her?” Dr. Vernon is surprised, an emotion Timothée hadn’t seen on her yet.

“It felt like I was either going to lose her, or cause her to resent me, which would make me hate myself. So, in order to save us, I -

“Agreed to sleep with other people,” Dr. Vernon finished.

“It was always about sex, it was never about having a third boyfriend or something, she wasn’t bringing people into our home,” Timothée explains.

“Your home?” Dr. Vernon, surprised again.

“We moved into this house in LA sometime after our third anniversary, gutted parts of it, built it to our liking, it’s gorgeous,” Timothée’s mind is going on a virtual tour of the two story estate, the sitting room where he destroyed your future, the bed where he’d held you close, the kitchen where you’d made countless meals together, and in the summer, in the garden, where you’d made love on a gingham blanket under the lemon trees.

“Do you still live there?” Dr. Vernon brought him back.

“For now,” Timothée nodded.

“For now?”

“She told me to either buy her out, or sell it,” He stated.

“Seems fair,” Dr. Vernon didn’t pick sides, Timothée liked to think she was on his, but if it came to blows, he didn’t know where she’d stand.

“It’s _her_ house, it’s her back splash and her herringbone hardwood and it’s our photos on the wall, our bedroom, our closet. It’s not a home without her,” Timothée wiped his eyes, the tears brimming. He was so fucking tired of crying.

“She didn’t want the house?” Dr. Vernon’s eyes drifted back to her notes, to Timothée’s legal pad, where she made a note in the margin.

“She packed up and moved out like we hadn’t been planning to spend our lives in it,” Timothée let the tears fall, hot and heavy as they moved down his cheeks.

“But you’re still living in it?”

“yeah,”

“Does that haunt you?” Dr. Vernon wanted to know.

“Yeah, I haven’t taken down the photos or made plans to move. Margot has a room, she’s familiar with it,” Timothée shrugged.

“Are you holding onto it?” Dr. Vernon questions.

“Like hope?” Timothée asked, eyes wide, tears fully cascading down his cheeks.

“Do you think keeping the house mean’s she’ll come back?” Dr. Vernon’s voice was never harsh, if her eyes were kind and welcoming, her voice was silk pajamas.

“Yes,” Timothée whispered.

It was in this moment that Timothée realized the entire problem with his relationship, and how he perceived their time together. Everything he did lingered on that idea, that promise, that glint in the sky of _hope_. 

“Why did you end your open relationship?” Dr. Vernon wanted to know, her hair laying in intricate braids against her scalp, cascading down the back of her blouse, a top Timothée had never seen before. He looks at her, knowing full well in the months he’d been coming to her office, he’d never once mentioned it.

“I got Florence pregnant,” His words were a whisper, that teenage boy shame of knocking someone up out of wedlock still ringing in his words, no matter how many times he’s said it.

“You closed your relationship before Florence was pregnant, or after?” Dr. Vernon was clearly confused on the timeline.

“Before I knew she was pregnant, after I slept with her,” Timothée clarified.

“How did she respond to that bit of news?”

“She was stoic, cold, I called her immediately and she was so mad that I even told her about it,” The anger started to boil in Timothée’s blood the millisecond he started speaking about her.

“Why was she mad?”

“I broke two rules, no talking about whoever you’re sleeping with, no sleeping with coworkers. She was so incensed that I broke the rules, the fucking precious rules that she created that,” Timothée exhaled, trying to measure his words. “She didn’t even care that I was so angry with myself. I hated myself, I’ve spent the last year hating myself, and all she had to say was that I had to live with the decision I made and to talk to Florence. She didn’t offer forgiveness or understanding, she didn’t try to be empathetic or kind. She just, fucking, she just let me hurt.”

Dr. Vernon ticks a few boxes in her head, her theories solidifying as Timothée moves through his anger.

“What did you expect her to do?” Dr. Vernon’s eyes are questioning, curious as to whether or not Timothée had at all in their time together begun to grasp the levity of the situation.

“Not that,” Timothée said, eyes still raging.

“How did she usually respond to you being in distress?” Dr. Vernon stilled, waiting to hear his response.

“She was loving, comforting, she listened, and she _cared_. She’d, she’d ask me how it made me feel and what was going to help me process it… She was gentle, calm… but that phone call, she didn’t fucking care,” Timothée stared at a spot on the carpet where the pattern divulged and bled into the binding on the side.

“Can you blame her?” Dr. Vernon quipped.

“No, I would’ve been, I probably would’ve responded the same,” Timothée swallowed.

“Hmm,” Was all Dr. Vernon said as she watched the wheels in his mind turned, putting the pieces into place that he’d been staring at for nearly two years.

“She never gave me a chance to work through it with her,” Timothée responded, though he wasn’t sure he ever gave her a chance.

“Walk me through what happened after you told her Florence was pregnant,” Dr. Vernon instructed, taking another swig from her water bottle. In all the times that Timothée had been to see her, he’d never seen her water level be at the same place. He marveled at her dedication, or compulsion to her daily dose of H2O.

“With Florence or?”

“You’ve been coming here for months, and yet you won’t refer to your ex by name,”

Timothée looked like he’d just realized 2+2= 4. He’d never thought about it.

“Oh, is that weird?” He asked, voice a whisper as he thought about it.

“Do you think it’s weird?”

“I, no? I can’t, I can’t say her name,” Timothée felt like putty, the taste of her name synonymous with heartache and loneliness, doing everything in his power to stop from thinking

“You don’t have to,” Dr. Vernon’s smile was forgiving, understanding instead of judging.

“When I told her Florence was pregnant, and that she was keeping the baby, well now Margot, she nodded and then she left,” Timothée exhales a burden he hadn’t known he’d been carrying. 

“She left?”

“She packed a bag, told me she’d pick a few days to come get her stuff and said she didn’t want to speak to me,” Timothée lays it out, facts, figures, no fits, no starts.

“How did that make you feel?” Dr. Vernon queries.

Timothée smiled a little, the phrase synonymous with sitting on couches, head being shrunk, he relished in the colloquialism.

“Abandoned,” He said.

“Have you felt that way before?” Dr. Vernon pushed.

“When she wanted to have an open relationship,” Timothée answered.

“Did you tell her that?”

“No,” Timothée said.

“Why not?” Dr. Vernon wanted to know.

“It seemed fleeting, the feeling,” Timothée can’t quite articulate it past that, fleeting, like sunset, like the look you give someone before you kiss them, the first sip of a freshly opened soda, the first sting of a papercut. Momentary. Insularly. Unremarkable.

“Was it?” Dr. Vernon probed.

“No,”

“Was it magnified when she left?” Dr. Vernon, _TKO_.

“Yeah,” Timothée whispered.

“Did she tell you why she was leaving you?” Dr. Vernon asked, handing the box of tissues to Timothée. He stared at her, unsure if he’s ready to divulge his greatest heartbreak. This was the moment they’d been leading to, the moment where he bared his soul, his shame, abandonment and contempt coming to a head in the quote from his ex. His eyes continued to leak heavy, hot tears; voice caught in his throat.

“It’s okay to just cry,” Dr. Vernon encouraged as Timothée’s shoulders slumped, his sobs breaking him.

“I’ve cried so fucking much,” Is all he could get out, a statement ringing true like the sunsetting and rising every day/night. He’s so fucking tired of it, of all of it. “She said, she said that everything we’d planned was gone.”

Dr. Vernon gazed at him, his slim figure compulsively recoiling as his sobs continued. Timothée wasn’t the first client to come to her at the height of despair, walls caving in. Nor was he the first partner to show up, the cracks of their relationship only revealing themselves as they talked, the instability and decay bubbling to the surface.

“That wasn’t all she said,” Dr. Vernon had a knowing look in her eye. As he blinked, Timothée wondered if it was smug, condescending, a look that told him he should’ve seen their demise coming.

“She,” He took a deep breath, a poor attempt at steadying himself. “She said that Florence had made me a father, and she would never be able to live up to that.”

Dr. Vernon sat, eyes pensive, pen stilled. She wondered how long it would take for Timothée to understand the hurt and abandonment his former partner felt learning that he had fathered a child with someone else. Not just the hurt, but the unraveling of her future, of their life, no matter how tenuous the situation was. Timothée, for all his charm and relationship experience, seemed to be lacking the ability to understand the primal desire built into womanhood: the want, need, to bear children. Some women never felt the calling, but it didn’t stop their biology from preparing their womb every month for a child and shedding it when it realized none was coming. He hadn’t yet grasped the reality of having your life partner, through choice or accident, embark on the most primordial aspect of life without them.

Dr. Vernon’s theories had been correct, and as she guided him throughout his sessions, she hoped that Timothée would fully grasp the weight his actions had on his ex, the pain he caused, and the hurt that both parties were feeling. The grief they were each going through was all encompassing but refusing to acknowledge both sides of the story would not serve Timothée in the future.

Timothée was hung up on how she left, how she iced him out, how she responded to his actions. But he hadn’t yet began to understand the utter devastation he created. By being unwilling to admit that he was the villain in his narrative, he failed to recognize that she too, had been the villain of hers. The only difference was that Timothée came out of the breakup with the house, and what mattered more, a child. A child to love, who would love him in return, a child with hints of his features and a name he helped pick out. It didn’t matter if he was heartbroken, he walked away with _everything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't planned on writing more of Exile, but your comments really made an impact. Buckle up, this is part 5 of 7 and then, Exile will fully be completed. Next chapter takes a little detour from the rest of the chapters, and I am super excited for it.


	6. The Side Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know if he’ll ever understand why I left and I can’t expect him to.

I suppose I should start at the beginning, no? In order to understand the end, we must understand where we came from. Hindsight after all, is 20/20.

I was leery of dating an actor, let alone a famed Oscar nominated one. I had never been surrounded by celebrities or famous people. We met at some backyard BBQ, on a night where the sunset looked like a thousand pastels had been melted at just the right temperature, their colors unifying under the most expensive beauty blender. He was dressed as I expected, jeans and t-shirt, baseball cap, curls running wild. Timothée was always charming, even across a swimming pool, even in the hue of a Manhattan summer. We fell into an easy rhythm, a mutual wanting and giddiness over falling for one another.

It happened fast, falling in love. I guess that’s how the saying goes, it’s a lot of little moments that add up to big ones. With Timothée, it was all big. It was all rose-colored glasses and trips to the Hamptons or upstate or to Crema, tickets and going backstage when nights afforded it, long vacations on the South of France, dinners with his parents, whispers and promises in the morning light… Those first two years were _bliss_. It was like the first day of Christmas vacation, every single day.

On one October evening, when his understudy went on, we drove to Connecticut and stayed at a little B-N-B, with floral wallpaper from floor to ceiling and pastel carpet to match each room. There was the weekend in May he picked me up from work at lunchtime, and we jetted off to Madrid for a long weekend. Of course, there were smaller things, quieter moments… When he was home, he’d always get up and make my coffee, leaving a note for me to find when I got to work. Or when we’d make a special trip Monday mornings to his favorite bakery, by La Guardia High School, and drop off pastries for the teachers and staff. Or how he’d twirl a misplaced piece of my hair between his fingers, or fiddle with the earrings in my left ear, or how he’d whisper my name and quote lines from his favorite books… It was how he looked at me, like I could catch the stars, how he wiped my tears, how he held me when I was unworthy, the forgiveness he offered, without hesitation, regardless of the crime.

We moved in at the end of my lease to a new apartment, one he hadn’t brought past lovers to, and it remained my home when he decided to start taking film roles again. Or rather, it remained the place I slept and ate, never feeling like mine when he wasn’t there. He was gone for months at a time, and I suppose, in my loneliness, that’s when it started to fall apart.

It’s often misconstrued that open relationships are messy, hurting everyone’s feelings while having few benefits, that threesomes are the norm and rules don’t always go both ways. I didn’t want an open relationship to be separate from Timothée, I didn’t want it to bide my time until he came home. I wanted an open relationship for the parts of ours that were no longer available, no longer thriving. It afforded me the comforts of another person, when he was working all hours of the day, impossible to get ahold of. It gave me something to hold onto, something to ground me when I felt like a light breeze would send me into outer space.

Dating an actor, a successful actor, though holding many benefits, is lonelier than I could’ve imagined. There is no flying your partner to set or weekend trips home. We would spend months apart, separated by land and sea, time zones after time zones. The first few films took him to all corners of the globe. Australia first, then South Africa, and finally Thailand. I remember that first trip, painfully. He tried to call as often as he could, Facetime whenever his schedule allowed, left voice messages and wrote long, rambling emails sent at all hours. But it didn’t matter? I guess, though I loved it all, and was appreciative, when I opened the door at 5PM, I was still alone. My love for him didn’t hold me when I felt anxious, it didn’t sit with me at dinner night after night or make love to me when I craved his touch. It didn’t offer a shoulder to cry on when work was overwhelming or when I fell sick. I never wanted to replace him, but I couldn’t maintain our relationship as it was.

By the time I brought it up, it wasn’t much of a relationship anyway. He’d come home for small bursts, no more than two weeks at a time, and in those two weeks we fucked 75% of the time. I was still working fulltime, and I couldn’t leave work just because he was home. The novelty of our situation was gone the second he left for South Africa, and I remember sitting on the couch, sobbing to my mom, unsure what to do. It was my friends who suggested that we open the relationship, and through therapy and lots of books and articles, I asked Timothée if maybe he’d be open to it.

The look he gave me when I suggested it, is almost worse than the look he gave me when I left him for good. He wanted to know if he wasn’t good enough for me, if his love wasn’t enough, if I was unhappy. I was honest with him, that in eight months he’d been home for five weeks, that I was heartbroken, and unwilling to stand in the middle of his career. I thought that was it, that I was asking for too much. Then he agreed.

In the two-three years after, I had my fun. I created a group of regulars who were into no strings attached, and it made keeping track of potential STI’s so much easier. I fell into a pattern, and if I was honest with myself, I was happier than I had been, but not happier than I was in our first two years. Sometime after this arrangement started, after he returned for longer than a month, we bought the house in LA. My dream house, the house we discussed raising a family in, the house we customized to our every desire, surround sound, speakers in every room of the house, a stunning waterfall counter, the painstakingly laid refurbished herringbone wood floors, a dream I’d had since adolescence. The shower tiles, the linens, the garden with lemon trees… It was Eden. We moved and together we built that home, we hung our photos on the wall, we invited friends over for dinner parties, we acclimated ourselves with life in LA, and when we needed or wanted, we went back to our place in New York. It always welcomed us. Timothée was home for a while before he left again, this time for five months, and I found myself in a familiar predicament.

In those years, my love for Timothée never wavered. My hope in our relationship was always burning, and all I wanted was that life with him. The life we dreamed, the life we were saving for. But it didn’t come without its pitfalls, and we fought occasionally. At first, we struggled to find our footing when he was home, and as we navigated the rules of an open relationship, we had to handle our jealousy and pride. It wasn’t easy, even in the end, when he returned after filming with Florence, we found ourselves unsure how to be together again.

I always had an inkling that I exercised this particular aspect of our relationship more than he did, it was clear from how he responded to my check-ins, how he responded when I tried something new in bed, when he found a weird article of clothing in the wash, unsure when I had procured a football sweatshirt. Though, that was a one-time occurrence, and I was more careful after…. It had been reckless, and I hurt him when I hadn’t meant to.

If I’m honest with myself, pride set aside, I knew the whole time I was hurting him, breaking his heart, little by little. Despite there being some level of hurt occurring throughout those years, we couldn’t negate the positives opening our relationship had. Our relationship returned to its playful, flirtatious tendencies, which I never thought it would. We found joy in talking to each other for hours when permitted, happiness in sending cute texts or photos of what we were doing, and the joy of being in love was no longer a distant memory. No longer burdened by the lack of physical intimacy, we could focus on all the parts of our relationship that we had longed for. He was my Timothée, and I was his.

When the Florence-pregnancy happened, in some ways, it felt inevitable, like we’d both been lying to ourselves for too long. I was so angry when he called. Black out, rage filled angry. We had one rule, well, more, but one that mattered. Don’t sleep with coworkers. Yet, he fell into bed with her so easily, so swiftly that I hadn’t had time to register his absence before he was calling to tell me he’d slept with her. Her, of all fucking people.

I admit, I was jealous. He left me to go be with her. I know it was work, I know they’ve known each other for years… All that made it worse. He broke my trust in the most… predictable manner, yet I was still devastated. I knew we could work through it. I knew we could find our way out of the hurt we were causing each other. We’d stop the open relationship; we’d just be the two of us; that was a concession I was willing to make for him and myself. Perhaps it had gone on too long, perhaps, the ending of our time together was inescapable. Maybe, in the worst case, we’d break up, sell the house, or buy each other out, we’d tearfully divide pictures, split the china, he’d get the New York place, I’d stay in LA. It would hurt, the life we built no longer being an option. Our future slipping away. That was the worst case, and I never thought we’d get there.

When Florence called, and Timothée shattered any hope of us ever having that life we dreamed, I went into autopilot. I couldn’t look at him, I couldn’t feel sorry for him or compassionate, all I could do was leave. I had to leave.

I left that day to protect myself.

I left that day to save face.

I left that day to ensure that I wouldn’t fall apart in his presence, that my vulnerability wouldn’t be seen, that he wouldn’t look at me like I was still his entire universe when I knew damn well, I wasn’t, and would never be again. What I had thought was my future, what I had planned on, what I had dreamed on, was now, gone. In the blink of an eye, everything was over, and I could do nothing about it. Nothing he said would change the fact that he was experiencing all these firsts without me. Nothing would change that his first foray into fatherhood would be at the hands of another. That the child sleeping in our nursery wouldn’t be mine, it wouldn’t have grown in my womb, nursed from my breast, had my eyes. No amount of love from him would ease those wounds. Yes, pride got the best of me, and yes, there are other partners who can move past it, but I am not one of them.

In the wake, in those months leading up to the birth of his child, Timothée was, persistent. The calls, the emails, the texts. Blocking him did no good, and I was resolute that I would make one final appearance in his life past packing my stuff and moving out. I was clear in my intentions, and I took what was mine. I moved into a one-bedroom apartment in WeHo, which, I hated. I hated every part of it. It was a transitional home, a place for me to rest my head before I made my next move.

The last time I saw Timothée was not either of our finest moments. Screaming at each other in the driveway of our home, hearts shattering for the final time, laying bare every resentment and deepest insecurities, breaking down so completely I had to pull over a block away to cry. I don’t know if he’ll ever understand why I left and I can’t expect him to.

I moved again, months later, back to New York. I spent the time in between renting the dinky one-bedroom and finally leaving, debating where to go. I couldn’t stay in LA, I didn’t want to move home, and though New York held the memories of our early years, it also held the hope and promise of my years in college and post, working in the city, finding my favorite laundromat and bagel shop. It held my dearest friends and was close to my family. New York affords anyone who lives there a chance at a blank slate, a fresh start, a new beginning, and I needed it. I needed to feel angry when the subway was stopping due to mechanical issues, the frustration of carrying an insane amount of groceries one too many blocks to my apartment, the thrill of running across town for a meeting, only to get stuck in some traffic jam while the cabby yelled in a language I didn’t know. It felt like returning home when you hadn’t realized you’d been homesick in the first place.

It was easy to avoid Timothée. I had lived nearly a decade in New York without ever seeing him once, a comfort I greatly leaned into. It was easy to fall back into my pattern, my old gym and studio still remaining, my favorite spots for happy hour greeting me like I hadn’t left, and friends so excited to see me, you couldn’t tell if I was returning from vacation or exploring the Antarctic.

Sometime in that first year, the ache of it all dissipated. I was back with my favorite therapist, and we worked weekly on navigating the hurt, the abandonment and the jealousy that had plagued my time with Timothée. I cried every session, until one day, I didn’t. They say it takes a month for every year you were together to get over someone, but for me, it took twelve months before I felt any desire to be with another person, physically or emotionally.

It all happened by chance, a friend having a happy hour birthday party, a guy from college that I had made out with once at some party freshman year and bumped into frequently enough to become friendly. He went to grad school in the UK and had just moved back, this party being his first outing stateside in nearly a decade. He had kind blue eyes and an electric smile, his laugh like a sound from the heavens, his touch like electricity. I remembered why I had liked him in college, but now, as two adults who experienced their own sets of heartache and disappointments, I could see that he had become someone I could love.

Falling in love with William wasn’t fast, it wasn’t all big moments that felt small, or how he squeezes my hand three times whenever he’s holding it. It wasn’t the high of being caught, of looking in tabloids for my picture or jetting off to European destinations. There aren’t vacations in the South of France, or trips to idyllic Spanish towns. Our dinners with his family are accompanied by weekends at the lake house, with cousins and nieces and nephews in spades. It’s Broadway plays and early morning walks, it’s him picking me up from work just to walk me home, it’s cooking meals together and him staying in one place long enough to watch a new season of The Bachelor/ette in real time. William is present. He’s steadfast, he’s dependable.

I’m not sure what the difference is between these relationships. Is it only that he’s here, 48 weeks out of the year? Is it that we knew each other before Timothée was a thought in my mind? Is it that my friends like him or that my parents view him as a part of the family? Maybe it’s all of them, all of the little occurrences that make up our relationship. Hindsight is 20/20, and with William, there are no rose-colored glasses. There is no open relationship because, I don’t need one to feel like my relationship is above water. I’m no longer drowning. With William, the future feels real, it feels attainable, it feels within my grasp.

Who am I not to take it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (please tell me your thoughts this is a departure from chapters 1-4)   
> (one chapter left, and I mean it, one chapter)


	7. Knuckles Bloody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What, what are you doing here?” Timothée asks through pursed lips. Her hair is neatly tucked into a ponytail, the ends dancing gracelessly against her bare shoulders, and Timothée tries not to stumble back as recognition coats his eyes, the black lace of the halter bringing him back to that Manhattan BBQ… But this time, the summer sun having darkened her complexion, freckles springing up from deep within her, it’s not his charms she’s falling for.

The clench of his jaw is unmistakable, the anger brewing deep in his chest, written in his eyes as he glances between them, eyes lingering on the tight grip the stranger has on her waist, the diamond sparkling against his eyes.

“What, what are you doing here?” Timothée asks through pursed lips. Her hair is neatly tucked into a ponytail, the ends dancing gracelessly against her bare shoulders, and Timothée tries not to stumble back as recognition coats his eyes, the black lace of the halter bringing him back to that Manhattan BBQ… But this time, the summer sun having darkened her complexion, freckles springing up from deep within her, it’s not his charms she’s falling for. It’s this tall, blond haired man who against any knowledge of Timothée’s, has proposed marriage.

“Tail end of vacation, are you in town filming?” She replies, tightening her grip on her fiancé. Timothée has a second to decide what to do: be friendly with the woman he had envisioned his life with, or be cruel, cordial at best, towards her new lover?

“Uh, yeah, Florence is here for a few months and I have Margot, so we came to visit, I’m actually meeting them in a minute if you want to say hi,” Timothée offers, though he knows it’s pathetic and beneath him, tacking on the prospect of seeing his child adding insult to injury.

“No, we can’t, we have reservations with his parents, actually,” She’s nonchalant in the way she litters in clues about their life. Meeting the parents, an obvious step for a couple who have made each other their home, perhaps this was the vacation the man proposed to her.

“Oh,” Timothée doesn’t know what to say to get her to stay, to stay in this moment, to stay in his line of sight just a little longer. “She loves the gifts you sent her; she plays with that name puzzle every day.”

“She still has it?” She asks, surprised the tiny gift she’d given upon Margot’s birth, the last time she’d seen Timothée, was still in her rotation. It had been years since she thought of the puzzle, a simple gesture to extend a little good will to him, but mainly Florence, in the wake of her destruction. After gifting the puzzle, she wondered if it would be viewed as a pathetic attempt to keep her on their minds for the years to come. It hadn’t been, she frankly hoped Timothée would forget her faster than she forgot him, but that wasn’t in her nature, that wasn’t something either of them would be able to do.

“Yeah, she takes it with her everywhere. This is the last trip she’s allowed to take it on, we’re getting it framed for her room,” Timothée informs her.

“I didn’t know it meant so much to her,” She says, eyes steady with his.

“Well, it’s not like I’ve been able to tell you,” Timothée lets the snark seep in, it’s been years, hasn’t he earned a little of it?

She feels William pulling her tighter to him, eyes cascading over Timothée, sizing up whether or not her ex, her ex with whom she built an entire existence before him, is worth the pain he’s willing to inflict.

It must be odd for Timothée, William thinks, seeing her intertwining her life with someone else.

William had never met Timothée, and through hearing the tale of their relationship, only felt a calm indifference to him. She’d worked through her hurt, managed to come out the other side, and that left William to make his own decisions about how he felt towards the actor. He only knew her side of the story, and that wasn’t nearly enough for him to go off of. 

When she had told him about her past relationships, namely her years with Timothée, William had listened openly. Turning off his analytical, litigator mentality, he absorbed the facts of her past, and nurtured the hurt and love she had felt. His only concern had been whether or not she was ready to be dating, if her heart was ready or willing to love again. Their courtship had been long, a year after reconnecting she was ready to call him her boyfriend, and from there, it was off to the races. Before William asked her to marry him, they spoke on end about how quickly they were moving. Was it out of fear? Did she really want to get married, or was she trying to accomplish what she couldn’t with Timothée?

William was confident in their relationship, confident in himself. If he was a means to an end, which he didn’t suspect he was, he would simply remove himself from the situation. He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to lose her, to live a life without her, but he wasn’t going to be a placeholder, the training wheels she discarded when she was ready to ride on her own. The long courtship had been his idea, to give them both time to see if building a life together was what they both wanted. It was. On this street in Italy, her ex in front of him, he feels that knot of discomfort, not of jealousy, but of unpredictability. They hadn’t expected to run into him. They hadn’t planned on being face-to-face with the person who set their relationship in motion. Was it a coincidence, or fate?

The moments they stand their speaking is enough time for Florence and Margot to come waltzing down the street, gelato in hand, laughing joyously into the Italian air. They had stopped on their way to meet Timothée, wherein the three would venture to a museum and then to dinner. In the four years that Margot had been earth side, she had blessed both of their lives. She was a call to grow up, and they did. Though they remained separate, Florence and Zach finding their way back to each other, and Timothée otherwise unattached, they remained steadfast coparents, with a solid foundation in friendship.

Florence spots them first, followed by a loud yell of “Daddy!” and Margot taking off into Timothée’s arms. The man, caught unawares, reacts deftly, lifting his child.

“Hi sweetheart,” He says, placing a kiss to her forehead. It’s a split second, but he watches you recoil, turning immediately to your partner.

“It cannot be, no way!” Florence says, walking up alongside Timothée and reaching her arms out. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re finishing up a vacation, and uh, we really should go we’ve got plans with his parents, oh, Florence, this is my husband, William. William, Florence, Timothée and Margot,” She says as she loosens her grip to allow William to shake hands with the familiar strangers. She’s visibly shaken, an unexpected run in, in some off shoot of Milan, there they stand, the life she could’ve lived.

“We should really go meet my parents,” William steps up, his hold on her tightening as she feels the earth start to slip from her. “Right?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” She responds, a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “It was uh,”

“It was good to see you,” Florence says, sensing the uncertainty and unease of the moment. “Margot, let’s go sit while daddy says bye.”

“I would love to uh, get a coffee if you’re around,” Timothée says, eyeing her.

“I don’t know what’s left to say,” she responds.

“You don’t owe me anything, but I’d like to talk to you, just, an hour. I’ll come to your hotel, tomorrow morning,” Again, he’s grasping at straws, fingers sliding off the ledge into an empty abyss.

“Okay,” She replies, giving in far faster than he thought she would. Giving him the name of their hotel, she continues to cling to William. Moving through a trance as they meander back to the hotel to rest before dinner, William speaks first.

“You didn’t have to-

“I know,” She says, cutting him off, her feet halting in the light of the elevator.

“Did you want to?” He wonders.

“No, I, I feel like I owe him, something,” She says.

“What do you hope to, god, it sounds crass, but what do you hope to get from talking to him?” William inquires.

“I just want him to stop looking at me like that,” She tells him, Timothée’s eyes still at the front of her mind.

“Like what?” William glances down at her, frown set against her lips, hand instinctively going to fiddle with the earrings on her left ear.

“Like I still hold his future,” She whispers.

~~~~~~~

Unable to sleep, she rises early to take a long bath in the luxe tub, before deciding the cool water and pruning skin is enough of a sign for her to get out. When she does, William sits in their bed, glasses on, phone in hand, no doubt reading the news. He’s welcoming as she crawls back into bed with him, her arm encircling his waist as she burrows her head into his chest.

“You don’t have to go,” He says, closing his phone and setting it down.

“I know,” She whispers.

“I’ll come down in an hour,” He offers, arms holding her close.

“Promise?” Her body shifts, eyes searching for his.

“Promise,” He vows.

“I love you,” She declares, earnestness in her voice.

“Oh honey, I love you too,” William’s words reverberate against her scalp as he presses another kiss against it. It’s the reassurance she needs, the promise she knows he’s already keeping, rings and vows previously exchanged. It’s her words that comfort him when she finally decides to rise and dress, slipping quietly into the hallway to meet her former love.

“Thank you, for uh, for agreeing to this,” Timothée says, standing and waiting patiently for her to sit.

“Yeah, well, I guess enough time has passed,” She shrugs, hand unconsciously going towards her earrings, twirling them gently in her ear.

“How long have you been in Italy?” He swallows in an attempt to manage his emotions, a hope that they’ll stop before he’s sobbing at her feet again.

“Oh, about a month,” She responds, smiling at the waitress as they scribble down their espresso orders.

“Honeymoon?” Timothée asks.

“No,” She shakes her head lightly. “And you?”

“And me?” He’s momentarily confused, watching the way her lips move.

“You’re here with Margot?” She reminds him.

“Oh, yeah, for a while. We’re going to Crema soon to spend the next week or so before venturing back into the city so she can see Florence,” He tells her, eyes never leaving her face. She’s gotten more beautiful since the last time he saw her, tears streaming down their cheeks, voices horse. He wonders if she knows he still asked about her, for the first year or so after they broke up.

“That’ll be nice,” She attempts a smile, though it doesn’t reach her eyes, or even her cheeks.

“I did, uh, buy that villa,” He informs her.

“Great,” She responds.

“Are you still at the same company?” He inquires. He tried to keep tabs, though Dr. Vernon had very strong opinions on it, but his friends were giving him nothing and he just needed something. It isn’t hard to track a person’s employment, and through this he knew unequivocally that she wasn’t at the same company as she had been six years ago. 

“No, I left a few years ago, and I moved up a few levels at Saffron,” She sips her water, slipping an ice cube into her mouth as a means of something to do, anything, other than staring at him, hoping this conversation ends amicably despite the gut feeling that it won’t.

“Oh shit, congrats,” Timothée lies. Can she still tell when he does?

“Thanks,” This time, her smile reaches past her dimples, her career a happy distraction.

“How’s your family?” More small talk. Small talk can put off the inevitable, right?

“They’re good, growing. How’s Pauline? And your parents?”

“Good, Pauline’s having a baby,”

“Oh, congrats to her,” She carefully picks her words, no ‘tell Pauline I said…’ nothing that would tie her to him for any moment past these 60 minutes, 3,600 seconds.

“Yeah, Margot is really excited, she can’t wait to have a cousin,” Timothée laughs, his daughter’s antics always bringing out the joy in him. It’s odd, she thinks, he has a child, an entire life she doesn’t know about, and in her heart of hearts, she has no desire to know anything about it. No curiosity of what Margot is into, if she likes books or enjoys kindergarten, no wonder about her favorite games or thoughts on Sesame Street vs The Muppets. She can’t tell if in this moment, it’s self-preservation, or a genuine indifference.

“That’ll be fun, we love having nieces and nephews,” She offers another glimpse at her life, a little nugget that he tucks into his pocket.

“You and William?” He asks. She watches him, his curls falling in the same pattern they did years ago, and wonders if there really was ever going to be a future between them.

“Yes, William,” She answers. Her heart swells at his name, William. Her _husband_ , William. 

“What does he do?” Timothée leans forward, elbows on the table, eyes trained on her.

“He’s a lawyer,” She says.

“What type?” Timothée wants to know.

“He works in contract law for a firm, and does pro-bono work in the city,” She informs him.

“You’re in New York full time?” He knows the answer, of course he does. Her firm was in New York so, seemingly, so was she. What he didn’t know was when William had turned up, or how she had fallen in love with him.

“How many questions are you going to ask before you just say what you want to say?” The words flow from her lips so easily, so quickly that she doesn’t register the bite until the flesh is already bleeding.

For all the time they’d been together, Timothée knows to wait, to let the sting of her curt response fade as he watches his illusion that she had any skin in the game, shatter.

“I wanted to apologize,” Timothée starts, “After we, after you,” He exhales, unsteady. “After Margot was born, I went to therapy.”

“Good for you,” She acknowledges.

“Yeah, thanks. It was needed. I spent a lot of time trying to understand why you left,” Timothée sips his coffee, and tries to read her expression. “I didn’t understand, and I guess I still don’t, why the thing with Florence broke us. I can empathize the pain you experienced, what I don’t understand is how you just, tossed us away.”

“I didn’t toss us away,” She clips, coffee cup clanging against the porcelain of its saucer.

“You left without a word,” He says.

“I’m pretty sure I gave you more than a few words,” She responds.

“You yelled and left,” He reminds her.

“You sent me enough voicemails, emails and texts to squelch any desire I had to speak with you,” She points out, eyes unphased against his. “I checked in with you, so many times in those years, so many times, monthly even, to see if you were unhappy or if we needed to make changes. I did my due diligence, Timothée. You never gave a sign that you were unhappy or wanted different.”

“I gave so many signs,” Timothée exhales, eyes wide, tears instantly at the brim. “I gave you so many signs.”

“I couldn’t read your mind,” She counters, frustration rising in her still hushed voice.

“I didn’t ask you to,” He snaps, his temper going in a brief moment, to be reined in again by her words.

“Yes, right now, you are asking me to,” Her eyes go devoid of emotion, her own temper coming down.

“I never learned to read yours either,” Timothée offers, a brief peace offering between the two. She takes it, using the pause to breathe, looking out the open window at the parts of the city that were starting to open up. It was quaint, wasn’t it, two former flames, finding each other on the streets of Italy, both living their respective lives, the space carved for the other filled or completely gone, unrecognizable except through distant memories.

She hoped she wouldn’t run into Timothée for a few more years, not that time would heal anything, it hadn’t been anything but cruel to their relationship. The time she wanted, wasn’t for her, but for him. Time for him to move on, maybe find someone new, someone who he could look at with all of his love, and not see as her replacement. Someone to love Margot, to raise her with, to give him more kids if that’s what they wanted. Maybe that would lessen the blow of seeing her, married to William, so willingly moving past the life they tried building. 

“We always walked a very thin line, and when you crossed it,” She starts, pulling herself back to the little alcove of her hotel.

“Who drew that line?” He whispers, knowing his words would start something he wasn’t sure he had the strength to finish.

“I asked you not to go to South Africa, and to spend more time at home before Thailand. You didn’t,” She relays the facts, her voice softer than before.

“You didn’t hear me out,” Timothée says, the phrase clipped against his tongue.

“You didn’t hear me out, you just,” She can’t process the anguish flowing through her, “I gave so many signs.”

“We had an open relationship for you,” Timothée points out.

“You crossed the boundary,” She reminds him, punctuating her phrase by her index finger aggressively into the table. Instead of responding, they sit, staring at each other, wondering how they ever loved one another in the first place.

“I apologized for that,” Timothée’s voice is still full of anger, but its edges are soft.

“It didn’t matter that it was Florence, if you had gotten someone else pregnant, I would’ve responded the same,” She offers, her own peace offering.

“I don’t know if I believe that,” He responds, his return of her gift a hope she’d give more.

“You don’t have to, but you asked why I left. I want you to know, if it had been anyone other than me, I would’ve done the same thing. Yes, you sleeping with Florence was a gut punch. But her pregnancy? TKO.”

“Is that why you left? Margot?”

“I’ve told you why I left,”

“So, if Florence had miscarried, you and I would-

“No, no, we wouldn’t have made it,” Her tone is definite.

“You’re so resolute on a hypothetical,” Timothée scoffs. “Who are you to say we wouldn’t have made it work? Who’s to say all the tears weren’t in vain?” 

She stares at him for a moment, him watching the shift in her eyes. Her, watching the pleading in his. She can’t force him to understand what she knows in her bones: they were never going to make it. She inhales, a measured breath.

“There’s no amount of crying that I can or will do for you. I don’t know what you want me to say to, absolve you of your pain or explain the deep primal hurt you inflicted. I’m not blameless, I know that, but I’m also not your problem anymore,” She’s steadfast in her response to him.

She’s tired, tired of his games, his roundabout way of asking her exactly what he wants to know, without any ownership over the pain of rehashing, tired of him trying to pry his way into her life. She’s moved on, carried on in her life without him, her happiness offending him isn’t hers to fix or feel guilty over. They made their decisions, and if it took seeing her out for him to fully understand how far moved on she is, that wasn’t her problem.

“I don’t know how we ever thought this conversation would go any other way. I meant what I said, in the driveway, that’s why I left, it’s never changed,” She says, setting the napkin that rested in her lap back on the table. “Goodbye, Timothée,”

“Does he, does he make you happy?” Timothée whispers, regretting the words the minute they leave his lips.

“You’re not my home anymore,” She reminds him.

“I still live there, in, in our place,” He hates himself more and more with every passing second that she doesn’t respond. He had bought her out, swiftly and in full soon after the incident in the driveway, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“We’ve done this before, this scene. You and me, trying to negotiate what happened in our relationship, one of us giving and the other taking, never an equal share. We’ve tried to understand each other, to empathize, to work through it all… But, when I’ve dreamt about this, this conversation we’re having, it’s always been in the past, like my mind has formulated exactly how this would happen, and I wish we had had this conversation years ago, back when I still,” She stands, pushing her chair in. Going against her better judgement, she lifts her eyes to his. “You look at William like he’s just your understudy, Timothée. Like he’s nothing more than a place holder for you, as if I’m still hung up, pining, for what could’ve been. William’s my crown, he’s _my_ person. You wouldn’t get your knuckles bloody for me, and honestly, I didn’t expect you to. You never gave me what I needed, and I didn’t give you what you wanted. I’ve seen this before, Timothée.”

Timothée is struck with a feeling he hasn’t experienced in years, that feeling of defeat, of devastation. He’s pulled back to the moment on the couch, Florence’s news dripping from his lips, to the moment on the asphalt of his driveway, the tears and snot pooling before dipping into his mouth, his throat raw from screaming. Had he been so blinded by his wanton desire for her and their supposed life that he had barreled past her words, _she made you a father_ , and created a false narrative wherein she was still pining after him? Where they would raise Margot together, live in their house, give her a sibling or two, and spend their lives intertwined?

The answer was clear, _yes_. 

Dr. Vernon had been right, about everything. Their pride had gotten in the way, and somewhere down the line they’d both convinced themselves that a partially happy relationship was better than a life without each other. They’d believed, or he’d believed, that opening their relationship would keep them above water. In the deepest parts of his heart, the deepest parts only Dr. Vernon knew, he was beginning to acknowledge that sleeping with Florence had been his twisted way of sealing their fate. Though this wasn’t the happily ever after Timothée thought he was getting.

As he finishes the last of his coffee, dropping bills on the table for the tab and stepping out into the sun, Timothée finds it all a little pathetic, or rather heartbreaking, that in this quaint hotel in Milan, he’s trying to regain his composure while his heart is shattering. While the familiar ache in his chest continues to spread throughout his body, tears falling behind his sunglasses, Timothée knows that no amount of tears or begging or voicemails or serendipitous run-ins in Europe can ever will her back to him. In his exile, he finally has to accept that he will never be her homeland again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Thank you to everyone who has read this! Your comments have been so thoughtful and insightful. They are why I even wrote a part 2. This is where the journey with Timothée ends, though other stories continue (I've written so many other ones). Let me know if William and Her are of any interest, or any other RPF)


End file.
